Jamie

He was always there at the edges Jamie, never the same as the rest. He looked so pretty he just didn't fit in, partly fuelled by the fear he might like one of us too much. A funny sounding surname name handily extended the suspicions. He hung about for so long though that he became accepted, then part of the gang. Then the best at attracting women.

He always tried too hard to play a part, needing other people to give him a stage. We were the theatre, but he was the lead actor. He even tried working on a building site with a few of us. But the other labourers had the suspicions we once had and it would have taken too long for him to be accepted. He was glad he got to keep his hands soft. And so were the endless stream of girls that flocked to him.

He spent hours flattering until he succeeded with a middle aged woman in the local video shop. She used to close the shop early to give them half an hour in the stockroom before her husband picked her up. Or he'd go to the hairdressers and ask any wearing a ring what sex was like for a married woman. He usually got to find out first-hand.

At one party I made a fool of myself when I wouldn't believe he didn't know the girl who came up to him in a packed room and said 'you're gorgeous'. I insisted it was a scene he'd arranged. He wasn't around to see this jealousy, having left discreetly with his admirer.

Going away to university meant he got to spend a year in the South of France. He invited me over, where I found him living in a flat paid for by his latest stunning girlfriend. In the endless sunshine the only clouds to be seen were above the heads of every man who failed to catch her eye as she walked down the street. She only had eyes for him. He was eager to tell me, and made sure I heard every night, how keen she was on sex. But also went out of his way to stress that she meant nothing to him and if I wanted, I could join them in their bedroom. I politely declined and bought some earplugs from whatever the French version of Boots is called.

Even with a girl who stopped men in their tracks hanging on his every word, it wasn't enough. He always wanted someone else's wife, girlfriend, lover, property. It was the chase, how they looked meant nothing to him. He just wanted to convert them to the religion of him. In France, it was a dowdy married woman who cleaned the communal hallway where he'd met her and would carry on meeting in her basement apartment when his girlfriend was out.

I lost touch with him when he finished University, but knew he was more proud of his tally of two lecturers than he was of passing his degree. It was only after seing his name on the credits at the end of a TV programme that I tried to get back in touch.

When we met he was just the same. He lived with a girl who, when he showed me a picture of her from his wallet, I recognised from the telly. But his real love, he whispered, was a married woman who he'd been seeing for over a year. She had kids so was never going to leave, which is why I suspect he was so attracted to her. If she ever did leave, within days he'd have been looking for someone else. For me, there was nothing left worth keeping in touch with.

It was by chance that I next bumped into him. He'd aged more than the time that had pased since I'd last seen him, acquiring a nasty ridge on his left cheek bone that made his eye on that side slightly lower. I didn't really have to ask what caused it, but listened to the explanation anyway. He'd been found in action with one of his lovers by her husband. It wouldn't have been so bad and maybe would have added to the thrill, if she hadn't made a point of telling all her friends how much better in bed Jamie was. The husband needed to smash the myth to reclaim his dignity. Jamie was the punchbag. His next conquest was the nurse who fixed up his face.